


sorry to keep you after you were gone

by ren_ascent



Category: Gilmore Girls
Genre: F/F, F/M, Infidelity, POV Alternating, season 1 divergent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 13:29:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21429001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ren_ascent/pseuds/ren_ascent
Summary: Rachel isn't in Lorelai's life for very long, but she changes everything. A reinterpretation of season 1.
Relationships: Lorelai Gilmore/Max Medina, Lorelai Gilmore/OFC, Lorelai Gilmore/Rachel (Gilmore Girls), Luke Danes/Rachel (Gilmore Girls)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a new work. This was originally posted in 2017 under my old pseud rippedoutgrace and I've done minor edits on it and cleaned it up a bit here. I'm consolidating it into a single chapter plus the epilogue.

When Lorelai was fifteen, Christopher called her and in a hushed whisper, told her to be outside her house at 2:00 am. He drove up at 2:01 am in his father's brand new (mid-life crisis) convertible. Lorelai remembers the exhilaration and slight tremble in her knees when she stood on the passenger seat and hooked her fingers, nails painted a chipped green, over the windshield and felt the sting of the air as it came at her in a rush, whipping her hair in her eyes and making them tear up. They were going fast, how fast she didn't know and didn't care. The roads were empty and nobody decent would be out so late. Not in this respectable neighborhood, full of stuffy people just like her stuffy, respectable parents. She whooped, loud, free, and grinned at Christopher, who grinned back and said something she couldn't hear over the wind. "What?" she yelled, but turned away before Chris could respond. She wasn't really interested in what he was saying. She was wild, intoxicated on the sense of pure freedom. Unbothered by anyone or anything.

She remembered that feeling the day Rachel kissed her. It felt remarkably similar.

*

Rachel has been on her mind for days now, especially after Sookie called her Elle MacPherson-pretty. The description stuck with her, needling at her every time she saw Luke. Seeing him in a slightly different light maybe. _This_ man had an Elle MacPherson-pretty girlfriend once. A pretty, wild, Wonder Woman that everyone seemed to know about except her. And Lorelai definitely doesn’t like being in the dark. About anything. Ever.

So, she makes it her mission to find out everything she can about the mysterious Rachel. She keeps a running mental list.

According to Miss Patty: she was an archeologist or a flight attendant.

Lorelai forces Rory watch Indiana Jones with her a few days later and Lorelai couldn’t decide if Rachel would be more like a female-Indiana or Marion Ravenwood. Rory leaves during the snake pit scene (“so gross, Mom! Why are we even watching this?”) to call Dean and Lorelai makes loud smooching noises as she dials his number. Rory shuts the door to her room with an eye roll and Lorelai turns back to the movie. Definitely more female-Indiana, she decides finally. She giggles quietly to herself of the idea of Rachel coming home to Luke covered in sand and dirt, lassoing him with her whip and tipping her hat. She can’t quite put a face to the name yet, but it doesn’t stop her from imagining. It also doesn’t stop her from turning down the volume on the TV and creating her own dialogue.

Lorelai asks Gypsy next while Gypsy is taking a look under the hood of the Jeep. “It’s a clunk-clunk-_thud_ sound, Gypsy.” She stomps her heeled boot on the _thud_ for emphasis.

“I know what a thud sounds like,” Gypsy snorts and sticks her head back in the engine. Or the carburetor. Alternator? Whatever.

Rachel didn’t have a car apparently when she lived here, so Gypsy didn’t know much about her except that she seemed to know a little about cars herself and helped Luke fix his truck from time to time. Rachel would also wave at Gypsy from across the town square and Gypsy would wave back.

“That’s it?” Lorelai asks, bewildered. “She waved?”

Gypsy makes a rude noise and waggles a wrench in Lorelai’s direction. “You asked me what I knew, that’s what I knew. She was nice, she waved. She poured coffee at Luke’s sometimes. What else is there?”

Lorelai shakes her head, smiling a little. “No big deal, Gypsy. I was just curious. Hey, did you figure out what’s making that sound yet?” She stomps her foot again just to make Gypsy laugh.

Lorelai mentally adds a little bit of motor oil and grease to her Rachel’s hands. Maybe just a smudge under her nails. _God_, she thinks, _she really is Wonder Woman_.

The slightly uncomfortable feeling that Lorelai is spending too much time thinking about a woman she’s never met before should have encouraged her to stop, but Lorelai is exceptional at ignoring uncomfortable feelings.

Andrew tells her that Rachel was a big reader but couldn’t specifically remember anything she ever bought, even after Lorelai prompted him. “Are you sure you can’t remember, Andrew?” He screws his face up, thinking, and then shrugs. Rory looks at her askance from behind the stack of books she’s carrying to the register for him to scan and Lorelai mimics Andrew’s shrug as if it’s no big deal. It’s not a big deal, it’s not. As they lug Rory’s newest purchases back home, Rory keeps staring at her.

“What?” Lorelai asks, annoyed. “I was just asking.”

Rory uh-huhs under her breath. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you _just asking_ all around town. Why do you care so much? Is it because Luke was so weird when you wore her jacket that one time?” Rory furrows her brow in concern now and Lorelai rushes to reassure her.

“Honey, no. I’m just curious, you know? You know how I don’t like to be left out of the loop.”

Rory seems unconvinced still but agrees that Lorelai does in fact hate being out of the loop. Lane is sitting on their porch when they walk up and she drags Rory into the house with a quick grin for Lorelai. Lorelai drops her half of Rory’s books in the entryway and rubs her sore arms and yells down the hall that Rory can get them herself. She wonders if Luke carried Rachel’s books home for her or if she could do it all on her own. Or if she could do it all on her own and Luke carried them anyway. Lorelai decides on the last one as she orders Chinese from the couch. Definitely the last one.

Kirk is absolutely unhelpful and she’s not even sure why she asked him in the first place. He instead offers to clean her gutters for her because he found a ladder in the dumpster behind Al’s and he’s planning on starting a business. Lorelai, horrified at the thought of Kirk ten feet in the air on a ladder, shakes her head emphatically. “Oh Kirk, _no_.” She walks away quickly after that.

Sookie is, of course, the best source of information about Rachel even though she makes it very clear to Lorelai that she thinks this is crazy and Rachel is a past long gone. She indulges Lorelai anyway. So, according to Sookie:

Rachel was adventurous (bungee-jumping, horseback riding, flying planes, etc., etc., all things that give Lorelai that sick, swoopy, thrilling feeling in her stomach to even think about). Rachel also was a photographer, liked to travel, and thought Stars Hollow was too small. And of course, she was supermodel beautiful.

Lorelai happens to see a picture of Elle MacPherson in Vogue as she flips through the magazine one Saturday afternoon when nothing good is on TV and Rory has been press-ganged into something at Chilton with Paris. She pauses and tries very, very hard to picture surly, grumpy, baseball cap-wearing Luke with someone like that and fails. She stares at the picture of Elle, glowing and air-brushed to perfection and tries harder. And fails again. She also can’t picture Elle MacPherson wearing an Indiana Jones fedora or having grease under her fingernails either. It’s starting to bother her that Rachel is so elusive, that Lorelai can’t quite pin her down with what’s she learned so far.

(Somehow, she manages to conveniently put it out of mind that Sookie thought Luke and Rachel were going to get married.)

All thoughts of Rachel go flying to the dark, dusty corner of her brain when she sees Christopher riding up on his motorcycle.

Rory is thrilled, of course, and Lorelai…isn’t.

Christopher is memories of a former life. A former life she’s tried so damn hard to separate herself from and it’s just. _Christopher_.

One disastrous dinner, a fight with her dad, and a spur of the moment, alcohol-fueled quickie with Chris on her balcony keeps Lorelai so busy she doesn’t even have time to think about Rachel. Then comes the marriage proposal.

A very tiny part of Lorelai wanted to say yes in the moment, but she has to be the responsible one here. The adult. The mature one. It hurts though. The entire encounter makes her remember the night she told Christopher she was pregnant. Emily was on the phone screaming at the dressmaker for ruining Lorelai’s coming out dress and writing the measurements down wrong. Lorelai cringed as she tried to sneak past her ranting mother. “Where do you think you’re going?” Emily snapped.

Lorelai waved a hand at her sweatpants and sneakers. “For a jog around the block, Mom. Like you told me to…” she trailed off at Emily’s blank look.

“Fine, go,” Emily turned her full attention back to the poor dressmaker on the phone. Lorelai fled the house, ponytail bouncing on her back.

She did jog that afternoon. She jogged to the bus stop and took the bus to the next town over. She jogged to the pharmacy. She flipped her hood over her head as she wrapped her arms around her belly and found the family care and planning aisle. She jogged in place as she waited for the single bathroom at the back of the pharmacy to open and she ignored every single person in the place, including the cashier who gave her a dirty look at her purchase.

A pink strip and her life changed forever. Taking the bus back to Hartford was surreal, Salvador Dalí surreal. _Was that a clock melting over there?_ She jogged to Christopher’s house and climbed up the trellis over the Hayden’s back patio, up to Christopher’s window. At her insistent tapping, he startled and grinned at her from where he was lying on his bed looking at his trig textbook _(oh, right, they have a quiz tomorrow_). That stupid, beautiful Christopher grin. That grin that got her into this mess.

They sat on his floor, a careful couple of inches preserved between them, for hours. “Are you sure?” he asked softly, for the fourth time since she told him. She didn’t answer, she didn’t need to. She was sure, the strip with its unholy pink stain was sure, and for all their jokes about being partners in crime, the phrase felt a little too real at the moment. They were just kids themselves. How could they have done this? How could she have let this happen? How could he?

With shaking hands, Chris took hers and gripped it tight. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, putting on a brave front. Lorelai could see right through it. He was terrified and hiding it badly. She climbed back out the window and smiled at him through the glass pane. He was still sitting on the floor, staring at her with wide, unblinking eyes.

When she reached the bottom of the trellis and dashed through the lawn, she felt different. Older, somehow. Like maybe she had left her childhood behind in Christopher’s bedroom. She hoped he would take care of it for her.

In some ways, he retained his Peter Pan-youthfulness while she had to grow up. She could see that as he and Rory laughed and strolled around town arm in arm with each other. She could see it as he said he wanted to marry her. _Yes_ was on the tip of her tongue for the briefest of moments before she swallowed it down. “We can’t get married, Christopher.”

He rode away on that big, beautiful motorcycle with his big, beautiful smile that still made her think of homeroom and Bonne Bell lip smackers and clove cigarettes. Rory was hurt by his leaving and secretly, Lorelai damned him for ever coming to Stars Hollow in the first place. This was her sanctuary and he brought things into it that she didn’t want here.

When she went to bed that night, she dreamed of him. Of him and her life Before. Her life was divided into parts: before Rory, before Stars Hollow, before reuniting with her parents. Before Rory, he was her best friend. The one who got her. The one who didn’t see her as too weird or too loud. He didn’t know she knew, but after her boyfriend broke up with her on her 13th birthday, Christopher punched him in the nose for starting the rumor that Lorelai was the gardener’s daughter. She’ll always be a little grateful for that.

Thinking of her life Before also got her thinking about things that she kept in a little box in her head marked Do Not Open.

When she was twelve and kissed Navena Cutler while they cried over boys on Navena’s bed, listening to Air Supply and eating Rocky Road ice cream. “What was that for?” Navena asked, sniffling through her tears. Her dirty blonde hair was a mess, a few pieces stuck to her lip-gloss. She had tasted sticky and sweet and Lorelai couldn’t help herself. She also didn’t have an answer.

“You were crying,” she offered lamely. She lay back on Navena’s bed, avoiding her eyes. Navena, bless her, was too upset about Randy to question Lorelai further about it.

Or when Rory was three and sleeping peacefully in the potting shed, Lorelai kissed another maid by the lake at the Independence Inn. Lisa, with her flaming red hair and warm brown eyes, nearly a foot shorter than Lorelai. She had the loveliest laugh that rumbled through Lorelai as they pressed close together in the shadows. Lisa’s hands drifted down and stroked Lorelai’s thighs and then up towards her center. Lorelai pushed her hands away apologetically and tilted her head to the shed. “Rory…” she mumbled, unsure if that's why she’s really protesting. Lisa just shook her head and stood on tiptoe to press another kiss to Lorelai’s lips.

“It’s okay,” she murmured, and stepped away. They kissed a few more times throughout that summer, the heat making everything seem lazier, hazier, softer. Lisa, handsy as ever, always tried to take things a little further but never pushed when Lorelai demurred. It made her anxious, heart racing, little beads of sweat slipping down her back. The thought of someone catching them. The thought of _Mia_ catching them. Lorelai owed her so much, she couldn’t bear to disappoint Mia too. _God, not Mia too._

Lisa seemed to understand Lorelai’s reluctance but left the door open for her. “There’s this bar in Hartford,” she’d start, hopeful little smile on her lips.

Lorelai turned beet-red and mumbled something about being underage still. Lisa blinked at her and then laughed (that lovely laugh) and shook her head. “I forget you’re still so young sometimes,” she said, but it’s kind and Lorelai didn’t feel the need to bristle at the comment.

Lisa moved on to another job the next year.

Or the other single mother when Rory started kindergarten who eyed Lorelai thoughtfully. “That’s my son, there,” she pointed to a little tow-headed boy who must have taken after his father because he looked nothing like her. Her name was Susanna and she invited Lorelai to a single mother support group she often attended. Lorelai went once and vowed never again, feeling awkward and uncomfortable around these women who were, in some cases, nearly 20 years her senior and filled with a bitterness Lorelai couldn’t begin to understand. Even at five, Rory was her pal, her light, her reason to get up in the morning. She would never complain about being a mother. As for being single? She always had been, technically.

She may have ranted a bit to Susanna about this after the first and only meeting she attended, and Susanna shocked the hell out of her by kissing Lorelai in the car right outside of the Independence, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Um,” Lorelai stuttered, for once without words. “Thank you?”

Susanna laughed and licked her lips like she was tasting Lorelai and it made Lorelai shiver in her seat, eyes tracking the movement. “You’re welcome,” she teased. And then, seemingly apropos of nothing, “We should set up a play date for our kids.”

Lorelai found herself agreeing and even as she was nodding, she knew Rory would hate it. “Absolutely.” She hoped Rory would forgive her.

The next Saturday, Mikey was running around on the only playground in Stars Hollow, screaming with childish exuberance. Rory was watching him from several paces away, horrified at the noise and glancing periodically at Lorelai on the bench next to Susanna as if to say, _why are you making me do this?_ The outing was saved by the appearance of Lane and her terrifying mother who took no notice of Lorelai. Rory smiled for the first time that afternoon and took Lane by the hand as they raced off to play together, leaving Mikey alone. Lorelai watched, grateful that Rory had at least one friend. She was startled by Susanna subtly trailing her foot against Lorelai’s leg and turned to stare incredulously at her. “Not in front of Mrs. Kim!” she hissed. “Not in front of Rory!” more importantly. Susanna wrinkled her brow at Lorelai for a long moment, taking in Lorelai’s panicky expression, chest heaving with fear.

She smiled gently at Lorelai. “It’s okay,” she soothed. She didn’t try to touch Lorelai again and when she and Mikey left, she leaned down to whisper in her ear. “It gets easier, honey.” The barest brush of lips against her ear sent a shiver through her that she felt between her legs and she clamped them firmly together.

Mikey moved schools the next year when his mom got remarried to Robert Hayes who owned the flower shop in Woodbury. Lorelai never saw Susanna again.

She doesn’t think about kissing another woman again for years.

That is, not until someone behind her says, “Hey, how’s it going?” And she turns in her seat to see _her_.

“You’re Rachel?”

A brilliant smile on an unbearably gorgeous face that makes Lorelai’s heart stutter in her chest. “I’m Rachel.”

*

Rachel is everything Lorelai imagined and more. And she routinely makes an idiot out of herself every time she’s around Rachel.

Luke just seems stunned to see her. Watching stone-cold Luke stumble and be so completely off-kilter makes Lorelai pity him just a bit. _I know,_ she thinks. _She’s breathtaking_.

Rachel fits seamlessly into Stars Hollow and Luke apparently understands Lorelai’s interest. “She always could just fit in anywhere, you know? It’s a gift.”

The night of the firelight festival, Rory goes off on her three-month anniversary with Dean and Emily tries to set Lorelai up with some smug, rich asshole whose name Lorelai forgets approximately 2.6 seconds after being introduced. Lorelai feels a little gratified that Richard seems just as annoyed with the man as she is. Emily, of course, is oblivious and happily chatting away all through dinner. The man's laugh grates on her already frazzled nerves and the prospect of sitting alone with him has her offering a flimsy excuse and making a run for it upstairs. 

Lorelai hates going into her old room but it does have the fastest escape route (excluding the front door, obviously) and her Duran Duran poster shudders a little in the breeze as she opens and closes the door. The dolls lined up on the mantle mock her and the beautiful dollhouse, the one she couldn’t bring with her to the Independence when she moved out, still rests on the table. It’s the only good memory she has of her childhood and she resolves to one day take it home to Stars Hollow with her. Of course, as soon as Lorelai has one foot out the window, Richard comes barging in and gives her the _look_.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says, sheepish and not really having a good excuse other than she doesn’t want to talk to that guy anymore. He lets her go without a fight and she only scrapes one knee climbing down from the second story balcony. She’s sure her mother heard the Jeep being started and driven off but she couldn’t stand it for another second.

He wasn’t her type. Men like him would never be her type. As she drives the thirty miles back to Stars Hollow, she thinks about it, getting more riled up by the minute that her mother would even try setting her up with pompous what’s-his-face.

(She absolutely does not think about how Max isn’t _really_ her type either.)

She likes men who are able to keep up with her – physically, verbally (Christopher). She likes them intelligent (Max). She likes them strong, secure, generous.

A tiny, quiet, laughably traitorous part of her brain whispers _Luke_ and she tells it to shut right up. She looks over to the empty passenger seat and feels Rory’s presence there for a moment, even though she’s twenty miles away with Dean somewhere right now. Rory would tell her no, that she can’t date Luke. Rory, always the voice of reason, would tell her he’s with Rachel, that he’s taken. Rory would say that if she messes it up, they’d never be able to get coffee again. All valid points – thank God for Rory. Or at least, thank God for her conscience that sounds a lot like Rory.

She slows down as she reaches the town, debates parking in the street right by the town square just to make Taylor crazy but then pulls around to the side of Luke’s, too tired to deal with Hurricane Taylor. No one but Cesar is inside the diner that she can see and she wraps her coat around her and steps out into the night.

The square is filled with lovey-dovey couples that make her want to gag and she feels a resurgence of her annoyance about the festival from yesterday. Sookie and Jackson are staring adoringly into each other’s eyes, holding hands. Lorelai thinks for a moment that it might be nice to have someone to hold hands with before she slides back into her uncharitable mood again. She catches a peek of Rachel’s curly hair, face hidden behind a giant camera lens. She’s not looking at Lorelai and checks her camera as she walks in the opposite direction. Lorelai spots Luke looking bored on a bench and she plops down next to him. “Where’s Rachel?” she asks, stupid since she just saw Rachel ten seconds ago but she wants to hear what Luke says about her.

“She’s a Founder’s Day Punch junkie,” Luke informs her solemnly and Lorelai shudders in horror.

“God, even the nice girls aren’t safe,” she says and she wonders what kind of a drunk Rachel would be. A happy drunk? A sad drunk? A sleepy one? A…horny one? She pauses and puts that one on the back burner for a while. “Is she staying?”

Luke doesn’t know _anything_ but Lorelai can’t help but think it’s nice to have someone to come home to. She has Rory but it’s not the same, not really. And Rory will be off to college in a few years and then what?

Lorelai loves her life and her stuff and her routines, after all, it’s taken years to perfect it down to a science, but she does wonder sometimes if she’ll be alone forever. In some secret part of her brain that she barely acknowledges even exists, she wonders if there’s no man out there for her. Maybe there’s a woman out there for her. Or maybe there’s not. She doesn’t know either way, but thinking too long on it will make her maudlin and mopey and she wouldn’t even be able to tell Rory why when she’d inevitably ask. So, she leaves that question alone and refuses to poke at it.

Sitting next to Luke like this is strange though. The night is cold with just the barest hint of bite in the wind though the bonfire is still roaring and crackling away. Lorelai shifts just slightly towards Luke, unconsciously seeking warmth, but he’s motionless, elbows resting on his thighs. She can smell him from this close. He smells like the diner and Old Spice that’s wearing off and coffee, though it could be from the cup she’s clutching still. _He is handsome,_ she thinks, but then wonders if it’s an effect of the firelight. He must feel her staring and says, “Rachel said the firelight changes people.”

Lorelai jerks her head a little, surprised that Luke seems to have read her thoughts. “It does,” she recovers quickly. She looks out and sees people she’s known for years, smiling, laughing, and holding hands. Years fade from aging faces and young ones are brighter, hopeful, shy. “It’s beautiful.”

They smile at each other and Lorelai wonders how it’s so easy with him. How she never feels stupid or weird or out of place next to Luke.

Later in bed, she’ll ponder how it’s so different with men and women. How she feels differently with them, about them. When she’s with men, she’s either even-keel or has the upper-hand. With women, she feels shaky, breathless, maybe a little nervous, but women are safer, more familiar somehow. Both are good, just…different. She’s not sure what it means.

Neither of them sees Rachel take their picture.

*

“Are you really not going to tell me about Lorelai?” Rachel asks, as they head back into the diner. It’s quiet inside – Cesar must have left.

Luke groans loudly and grabs a wet towel to start wiping down the counters. Rachel snatches another towel and gets to work on the opposite end. She works her way towards him. “Rachel, I told you.”

“Did you?” Her tone makes it clear that no, he did not in fact tell her. “She’s pretty.”

Luke laughs embarrassed, hems and haws and goes around in incoherent circles as he dodges her. Rachel catches him by the coffee maker. “She’s _pretty_,” she says, softer and slower this time. Luke just stares at her.

“How are you not falling down drunk right now?” he asks, leaning in like he’s smelling the alcohol on her breath and she rolls her eyes. He shakes his head at her like she’s a marvel. “You always had that hollow leg, huh?”

“Don’t change the subject.” She does have a hollow leg though, able to drink just about anyone under the table. But that’s not the point right now. She leads him upstairs by the hand and shushes his protests about finishing cleaning up. “It’ll be there in the morning.”

Rachel was serious when she told Luke that she missed him. She missed him like an ache between her ribs, like she never missed anything before. She knows she has her own faults and God, does Luke have her number when it comes to listing them. She knows she’s flighty, distracted, bored, prone to taking off without warning. But she thinks she also has a few pretty good qualities too.

She tries to remind Luke of some of them in bed that night.

It does feel different between them. Before, whenever Rachel left and came back, they could always pick up where they left off, and it’s her favorite thing about Luke – that he’s a solid, fixed point for her to return to after she’s quieted the itch under her skin that urges her to go, fly, experience, do. She can see now that she was wrong. However, the sex is still fantastic and it gives her a small hope that they can maybe, just maybe, work this out.

They’re both slick and sweating, coming down from the high. Luke flops onto his back with a loud groan. “Try’na kill me,” he slurs. Rachel laughs softly and pillows her head on his still heaving chest. She can hear the _thump-thump_ of his heartbeat and it’s soothing. She loves this part, always has.

She’d asked him once, recklessly, to come with her and he hadn’t done anything so dramatic as physically recoil but it came close. She never asked again.

“She’s got pretty eyes,” Rachel murmurs, knowing that Luke would know who she’s talking about. “Seems like your type. Why didn’t you ever…?”

Luke sighs, staring at the ceiling, apparently giving up on his hope that they could continue to avoid the subject. He gives one last ditch effort though. “Are you really thinking about her right after we did _that_?” Rachel doesn’t answer. He’s probably hoping she’ll fall asleep and forget about it but the combination of alcohol and sex has always been the fastest way to get her wired up. He knows it too.

Rachel cards her fingers through the hair spattered across his chest and her head bobs with the force of his sigh. “I don’t know. She’s just a friend, Rachel.” Something seems to occur to him suddenly and he sits up, dislodging her from her comfy spot.

“What?” she asks, sitting up, too. She smoothes a hand through her hair, unmanageable, as always. She brushes a sore ache on her chest when she drops her hand down to her lap and remembers Luke biting, sucking, leaving marks. Getting just the tiniest bit rough with her even when he knows she could take more. God, the sex really is always fun.

Luke shakes his head. “Are you asking because she’s my type or _your_ type?” That gives Rachel pause and she pulls one knee to her chest under the covers and rests her chin on it.

The question is out of left field but there’s no judgment on his face, nothing but honest curiosity. She loves him, she does. She always has. Rachel thinks a little longer and Luke leans back against the headboard, patiently waiting. After a long moment, she looks at him and he quirks an eyebrow. “I don’t have an answer for you right now.”

He nods and accepts it (she loves him, she really does). By mutual tacit agreement, they steer clear of Lorelai for the rest of the night. They talk and both understand it for what it is – a first attempt of many to reconnect, to reestablish old bonds, to get to know each other again.

Rachel tells him stories of her assignments, the more interesting places she’s gone. Luke tells her that for about two years when she was gone, he very seriously dated a woman named Anna Nardini but he hasn’t seen or heard from her in years. He seems bashful almost telling her about Anna. Rachel rolls “Nardini” in her mouth for a moment, and smiles. She debates silently for a moment before reciprocating.

The gorgeous girl in Tel Aviv with hair curlier than Rachel’s. The Greek fisherman who taught her a few Greek words (some of them dirty, which she doesn’t tell Luke) and took her out on his boat (where they fucked, loudly, knowing no one but the fish was around to hear them – Luke likes that part and she knows he’s thinking of his father’s boat). “We’re not fucking on your dad’s boat,” she laughs.

He starts, caught out. “How’d you know? And why not?” he asks, a little defensive.

“It doesn’t even float!” She doesn’t say that it would creep her out a little, but maybe Luke hears it anyway.

“Alright, alright,” he grumbles. He’s still smiling though, so the mood isn’t lost yet.

The apartment is a bit chilly and Rachel snuggles closer to Luke. He’s like a man-sized space heater. She tells him so and it makes him laugh. Not for the first time she wishes she were just a little more normal. That she could be happy staying in one place for the rest of her life with this man. This man who loves her and she loves back and if only things were different, if only _she_ were different. If she weren’t so flighty. If she knew that she could be tied to one person forever. If only, if only.

They talk until the room starts to glow pink with the rising sun and Luke looks chagrined at the clock. “Stay,” she says, pushing him down onto the pillows. “I’ll help out downstairs.”

She’s prepared for him to fight her on it but he gives in after a moment’s hesitation. “If you’re sure…”

“I am,” she tells him and slips out of bed. She pads naked to the bathroom and he’s fast asleep when she comes back out. She spares a cursory glance around for her bra but it seems to have wandered off last night. She shrugs into one of Luke’s comfier flannels over her tank and heads downstairs.

It’s barely 6 am and she’s a little surprised to see Lorelai and her daughter standing in the thick of the morning crowd. She grabs two coffee cups and swings around in front of them with a smile. “Didn’t think you’d be the early morning type.”

Lorelai seems equally surprised to see her and nearly drops her jaw when Rachel tells her that Luke is sleeping in. “Luke? Sleeping in?”

“Well, we were up pretty late last night,” and she lets a loaded pause drop, curious to see how Lorelai will react.

Lorelai smiles and blushes and stumbles over her words as she tells Rachel that it’s nice she’s staying. Rachel is sure to lightly touch Lorelai when she tells them to grab the free table. Lorelai may have been flustered but she focuses completely on her daughter once they’re seated.

_That’s nice_, Rachel thinks. It’s obvious that Lorelai had Rory young, very young even, and they’re clearly the best of friends. Rachel wonders if Lorelai had a similar relationship with her own mother or if it had been more like Rachel and her mother. Rachel didn’t get pregnant as a teenager but she still packed her bags the night of her eighteenth birthday and never looked back. She didn’t even know people had good relationships with their parents until she heard Luke speak so reverentially about his father.

(What she never talks about, ever, is that she only packed her bags and left before her mother could throw her out first after catching her behind the woodshed with Diana Pruitt. She heard Diana got married a few years ago to that moron Ricky from their biology class. The news had hurt, rather unexpectedly.)

Her stomach clenches in confused fear when she sees Luke tearing out of the diner to put some teenager in a headlock on the street. She’s setting down the coffee pot to follow when she notices Lorelai dashing off after him and she stops, watches through the window. She can’t tell what they’re all saying but Luke is furious, livid in a way she’s rarely seen. The kid slinks off and Lorelai bodily marches Luke back into the diner. She throws a distracted wave at Rachel before she rushes back outside to Rory.

“Hey Cesar,” Rachel calls to the kitchen behind her. “Uh, we’ll be back in a few minutes.”

“Take your time,” she hears Cesar grumble.

Rachel looks pointedly towards the stairs and Luke storms up them, heavy footsteps thudding and reverberating through her legs as she follows behind him.

“What the fuck was that all about?” Rachel stands near the door but not blocking it, arms crossed and wary. Luke doesn’t seem to really notice her there and goes off on a rant that includes pacing, arm waving, and a few choice expletives. But no real substantive reason as to why Luke, a grown man, went and attacked some teenage kid on the street. This isn’t the Luke she remembers and it’s making her feel off-balance. Like she’s staring at a stranger right now.

“I knew that kid was trouble from the moment I laid eyes on him,” Luke snarls. “I shoulda known he’d break her heart.”

Rachel stares incredulously at him, still pacing up and down the length of the apartment. “He’s Rory’s boyfriend?” Well, she didn’t think he was Lorelai’s.

“Yes!” Luke flings his hands in the air with all the dramatic timing of a Broadway stage actor.

“You care a lot about her, don’t you?” Rachel asks, quieter. Luke stops and looks at her, _really_ looks at her this time. He nods.

Her heart does a funny little flip in her chest and she squeezes her eyes closed for a moment and wonders if he’d have been so protective of their children. She’s sure he would have been but still. Luke’s anger was breathtaking and she’ll admit, it scared her a little. That that little girl could dredge up such emotion in Luke was a little bit of a revelation and she feels once again that she’s walked back into a life that is not just as she left it. That things have changed in her absence.

Rachel doesn’t know what she’s doing here anymore, if she ever did.

*

That night, Lorelai finds her Max box and the Proust and she just needs to know, to find out if it really is over or if there’s anything left to salvage. She borrows Sookie’s car because Rory is off at some Chilton party with Lane and she has to do this now, before Rory comes home.

Rory has been putting on a brave face all day and she still won’t talk to Lorelai. Lorelai wants to grab her sweet, beautiful, brainy daughter and shake her gently. _Mommy can’t fix the problem unless you talk to me!_ She doesn’t understand – they’ve always been able to talk before but Rory is shutting her out right now and Lorelai doesn’t _want_ to respect the decision, but she will (with difficulty). Rory will come to her when she’s ready, but certainly not before.

She supposes she’s sort of doing the same thing to Rory right now, keeping things back, not talking, but it’s different, okay? It’s not the same.

Driving to Max’s house is fun and excitingly heart-pounding for the first 25 miles but as she creeps closer, her palms start to sweat and she has to rub them on her jeans. “Why am I doing this?” she mutters to herself, head craned forward, looking for his street number. “I hope you appreciate what I’m going through to return you home,” she glances over at the Proust on the front seat. Its gold-flecked binding shimmers under the passing streetlights but doesn’t answer her.

When Max opens the door and looks at her with absolute astonishment, she second-guesses herself for a moment. And then of course starts babbling about fire eating and sword swallowing and Rory and Dean and Max…listens. “I just missed you,” she says, and it is true. He invites her inside and within moments they’re in each other’s arms.

Lorelai thinks she could stay right here forever. Max kisses her so thoroughly and his hands run up and down her body, eliciting chills. When he grabs her and holds her at arms length, it takes a lot of self-control not to throw herself back at him. “This is crazy!” he groans. “I don’t see you for months and now this?”

It is crazy, she knows. And she’ll play along with whatever it is he needs to feel okay with this because all she really wants right now is his hands on her ass and his tongue back in her mouth. She obediently sits on the couch and waits. It doesn’t take long for him to lose tenuous grasp he has on his composure again and he drags her to his bedroom.

It will take a while and a _lot_ of uncomfortable introspection but Lorelai will eventually figure out that she only liked how much Max liked her. That and the sex was really good. The man did have a talented tongue.

“We should talk on the phone and try and figure this, us, out,” Max tells her, and she agrees easily.

“Sounds like a good plan,” she replies. And it is a good plan. But she already knows what she knows – that they’re a bad idea and he’s still Rory’s teacher and there’s no two ways around it, no matter how many phone calls they make to each other. Maybe she’s willing to try for him though.

She cleans up as best she can, not wanting to go home smelling like sex and Max, but she can still feel him between her legs and her jeans chafe where his stubble rubbed the thin skin of her thighs. She drives home smiling and looks over to the seat next to her and laughs. “I can’t believe I forgot you, after all that,” she groans at Proust. It slides in the seat as she takes a turn. “That was probably a bad idea.”

Many, many years later, Emily will tell her, words said in anger, that she’s a natural disaster, knocking down everyone and everything in her path, that she never does anything she doesn’t want to do. It may have been grief and anger talking, but it had a ring of truth behind it. And Lorelai knows it. She doesn’t know how to change, any more than Rachel knows how to stay put. She’s not a perfect person, but tries to be good. She just wants more out of life because she knows there is more, and you can’t get there by following the rules. You simply can’t.

Thoughts about her love life are thrown to the curb when she finds a sobbing Rory on the couch, eating Ben & Jerry’s in the dark. Her heart breaks and she does the one thing she’s best at – being there for her kid, her pal, her best friend in the entire world.

*

Gran comes to visit and offers Lorelai a way out.

And then takes it away just as fast.

*

It’s not that Lorelai hates her mother (honestly, she doesn’t), but she doesn’t know how to be anybody but herself and Emily will never be anyone other than Emily Gilmore. Sometimes Lorelai will catch herself saying something a little too harsh, or too offbeat, or too aggressive and she knows that as soon as the words have left her mouth, she shouldn’t have said it. But she also can’t bring herself to apologize or mitigate the damage. Usually Emily doesn’t even allow her the chance. The problems between them run deep and Lorelai is positive that things will never truly change.

So when Rory invites Emily to Stars Hollow for the day, Lorelai almost pops a blood vessel trying to silently convey through wide eyes and subtle head shakes to her sweet, naïve daughter _danger, Will Robinson! Danger!_

It’s not really fair to Rory, she knows, that she’s kept her parents at arm’s length and deprived Rory of getting to know her grandparents, but she’s also deeply wary of her mother seeing firsthand the town, their home, and everything that makes up their life a blessed thirty miles away from Emily’s judgmental eyes. And Rory would never know to edit certain things or avoid particular topics with Emily. Lorelai knows where all – well, most – of the landmines are when it comes to her mother and Rory doesn’t. Which is why Lorelai works herself up into a respectable frenzy on the drive home.

“Rory, honey, it’s fine that you want to take Grandma around town,” she says, managing to sound somewhat sane and reasonable, eyes pleading at her daughter. “But please, please don’t take her _everywhere_.”

Rory looks skeptical and then grabs at her seatbelt fearfully. “Eyes on the road, mom,” she gasps, and Lorelai jerks the car back into their lane, another car whizzing past and honking angrily. “Like where?”

“What?” Lorelai asks, eyes wide and firmly fixed on the road again. Her hands grip the steering wheel and she flicks her glance to her rearview mirror before returning to the road in front of them. “Where what?”

“Where do you not want me to take Grandma?” she replies, patient as ever.

Lorelai shrugs. Casual. “I don’t know, just maybe skip some of the more quirky stuff. Like I’m sure Grandma doesn’t want to see the giant Slinky.”

Rory makes an exaggerated agreeable face, pursing her lips. “Sure, sure,” she says. “We’ll skip the Slinky.”

“And maybe don’t take her to Luke’s.” Lorelai tenses even as she says it, waiting for Rory’s inevitable _why not_.

“Why not?”

She sighs and doesn’t look at Rory. She can’t tell her that Emily has been getting the wrong ideas about her Luke for months now, ever since Rory’s birthday party. And even more so when he came to the hospital with her. That and Lorelai doesn’t want Emily to see Rachel. And Luke. Rachel and Luke together. “Just, if she asks, you know, suggest some other places to go, okay?”

“Okay.” Rory draws it out like she thinks Lorelai is being nuts. And she is, and she knows it.

“Okay,” Lorelai repeats, firm. That’ll be the end of it. She’s the mom, after all, and she gets the last word.

*

“I’m spending the day with Rory,” Emily tells Richard over breakfast the next morning. She sips her coffee in her fine-bone, rose patterned china cup with a practiced ease that hides her excitement.

Richard barely lifts his nose from this morning’s edition of The New York Times. “Hmm?” he hums distractedly.

“She’s going to show me around, do a little antiquing. Maybe have lunch,” Emily continues. She slices a strawberry into fourths and delicately spears each piece with her fork.

“That sounds fine, Emily,” Richard tells her from behind the business section.

It does sound fine, Emily thinks. She really couldn’t be more thrilled that Rory wants to spend time with her. Especially since it’s always been a secret fear of Emily’s that Rory would grow to hate her, too, just as all Lorelais seem to do.

The day Richard told Emily that he wanted to name the baby, if it was a girl, Lorelai after his mother, Emily’s heart stopped. The baby kicked at her ribs, already demanding and fitful and not even born yet. Emily had rubbed a soothing hand over her belly and said evenly, “That sounds fine, Richard.” But inside Emily was terrified. What if this Lorelai, the second Lorelai, hated her as much as the first did?

When Emily held Lorelai in her arms for the first time, blue eyes blinking back at her, she sent a desperate wish to whoever might be listening above that her daughter would not grow to be like her namesake.

When Lorelai named her daughter after herself, Emily wept. Another Lorelai that would hate her, scorn her. She couldn’t bear it. Her heart broke. And broke again when Lorelai ran away, taking Rory with her and confirming all her worst fears.

As she drives to Stars Hollow, Emily sings along to a tape of show tunes that Richard bought for her. Her heart doesn’t feel so broken right now.

*

Rachel hears Lorelai before she sees her. It amuses her that Luke seems to talk faster, trying to match Lorelai’s quicker wit and speed, whenever she’s around. Rachel can’t keep up with a caffeinated Lorelai and doesn’t even try.

She’s had the pictures sitting downstairs since the diner opened this morning, waiting to show Lorelai. Rachel has this one picture she’s dying for Lorelai to see and when she developed it last night, it made her breath catch in her chest. She had moved it gently through the solution with her tongs and watched it form and take shape, sighing softly. Maybe it’s some perverse need to see Lorelai and Luke together but really, she thinks it’s nothing so dark. She loves Luke and she doesn’t know Lorelai that well yet but she thinks maybe, just maybe, she could imagine herself loving Lorelai too one day. Really, for all her faults and flightiness, Rachel has never been plagued with that jealous streak that seems to choke the life out of some people.

“I took it when you weren’t looking,” she tells Lorelai with a smile. It’s a cozy scene, Luke and Lorelai glow in the firelight and Lorelai has the softest smile on her face. Luke isn’t smiling but there’s something fond in his expression. Rachel loves this picture. This is what she loves about photography. If people don’t know or manage to forget she’s there, their faces tell stories far more eloquently than words ever could. It’s amazing, she thinks, what people hide until they think no one is watching.

It’s Rory who finds the picture of the inn buried in the stack. “It’s pretty,” she says and Rachel agrees. It does have a certain charm, despite or maybe because of its cracked and broken façade.

Lorelai says it’s Dragonfly and Rachel doesn’t know what that means, but she loves the look of excitement on Lorelai’s face and impulsively offers to take her there. “Oh,” Lorelai starts to protest, shaking her head.

Rachel can’t take no for an answer, not now. “No, come on, I’ll drive us out there,” she wheedles. She can see Luke squinting speculatively at her and she ignores him.

*

“What are you doing, Rachel?”

“God,” Rachel exclaims, spinning around sharply. “I didn’t hear you come in.”

Luke doesn’t reply and crosses his arms. Rachel finishes sliding into her jacket. “I’m about to put film in my camera,” she says, a little cross. She sits on the couch and pops open a new film canister. “Putting more film in,” she repeats.

“That’s not what I meant.” Luke looms over her and she gives him an unimpressed look. It works and he sits down heavily at the other end of the couch, dropping the tough guy stance. “Why are you hanging out with Lorelai?”

Things haven’t been tense, necessarily, between them lately but Rachel has been starting to wonder if she’s fighting for a lost cause. Ever since she saw how fiercely Luke reacted about Rory’s boyfriend, she’s felt a little bit like an outsider and she hates it. Really, it’s not even about Rory as it is she knows that it isn’t fair for her to have expected Luke to stay the same all these years but she’s human and flawed and selfish and she can’t apologize for it. She wants things to be as they were. And things are _not_ as they were.

“We’re going to see an abandoned inn I found the other day,” she tells him.

Luke nods. “That’s what Lorelai said too. But why?”

Rachel makes a mental note to go over later that Luke had talked about this with Lorelai first. “I like her and we’re hanging out,” she shrugs. “That’s all.”

Luke doesn’t seem satisfied but he doesn’t question her again. She heads for the door, grabbing her keys off the table. She pauses with one hand on the doorframe. “I love you.”

A pause that isn’t more than a couple of seconds but feels like a lifetime follows. “I love you, too.”

She shuts the door behind her and does her best to pretend that Luke didn’t sound as confused by her statement as he actually did.

Rachel spends the drive to the Independence Inn wrestling with her brain. She works most of her hair one-handed into a clip she finds in the cup holder and rolls down all the windows. The air rushing by makes it feel colder than it is but she revels in it, clears her head a little, even though she can’t feel her ears by the time she pulls up to the inn. A surly, sarcastic Frenchman at the front desk tells her she can wait in the lobby for Lorelai. Rachel finds a chair to wait in but after a few minutes of restless fidgeting, gets up to explore.

Lorelai finds her ten minutes later looking impressed at the chandelier in the dining room, apologizing for keeping her waiting. “It’s been kind of a crazy morning,” she explains and she does look a bit frazzled.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Rachel reassures her. “This place is beautiful.” She gestures around and Lorelai smiles, a hint of pride coloring her face.

“Thanks, it’s…” she trails off for a moment, looking over Rachel’s shoulder. “It’s been a good place for me.” She focuses back on Rachel and points a thumb towards the door. “You ready?”

*

Around the same time Lorelai is buckling herself into Rachel’s car, Emily is fleeing the grounds as quickly as she’s able to in a pencil skirt. She can hear Rory calling after her, concerned. “Grandma, wait!” But she can’t stop. She has to get away from that horrible, dirty little shed that is physical, standing proof of how much her daughter hated (hates?) her.

She drives back to Hartford in tears.

*

Lorelai pulls one long leg under her and turns to face Rachel. “Okay, your turn. Favorite movie?”

The radio plays softly as Rachel drives and she recognizes it vaguely as a Cranberries song. She chews on her lip for a moment, thinking. “Out of Africa,” she finally says. “Love it.”

“Oh,” Lorelai says, grinning happily. “It’s so good. Meryl really can do anything, can’t she?”

Rachel nods, smiling back at Lorelai. “When I was in Kenya a couple of years ago, I hiked the Ngong Hills because I just had to see it for myself, you know?” She laughs when Lorelai drops her jaw. _God, she’s cute_, she thinks, feeling a pull of want in her belly.

“Kenya, the Middle East,” Lorelai shakes her head. “I think you might be the most exciting person I know.”

Rachel quirks her lips. “I never did get around to reading the book though. I’ll have to do that someday.”

“Absolutely!” Lorelai enthuses, her shoulders straining against the seatbelt as she faces Rachel fully. “Isak Dinesen is amazing!”

They don’t get to finish because Rachel pulls up next to the Dragonfly and Lorelai hops out before Rachel even turns the car off. Rachel reaches behind the seat to get her camera and follows. She snaps a few pictures, getting Lorelai in a couple.

“Wow, it must have really been something when it was fixed up,” Lorelai says. Rachel agrees and takes another picture, this time of the drooping wisteria over the porch. She thought she had exhausted this place but with Lorelai here, it seems to have a little inspiration left for her still.

Rachel asks what’s her fascination with this place and Lorelai confides that she’s been thinking of opening up her own inn with her friend. Lorelai turns on the steps and Rachel times it right, takes the picture before Lorelai realizes it, thinking she’d never seen anything quite so beautiful. Lorelai laughs and poses with her arms flung wide for a second before dropping them. Rachel presses the shutter-release button again, hoping she caught that moment. She can’t wait to develop these.

Lorelai asks her about being a photographer and Rachel answers honestly. She needed something that would keep her moving, keep her from staying in one place too long. She doesn’t tell Lorelai that Luke used to call her the anywhere but here girl. She knows it’s not a term of endearment.

“Things seem to be going pretty well for you guys,” Lorelai gestures at Rachel.

Rachel doesn’t know why she says it, she doesn’t mean to be so honest, but she does anyway. “I think it’s time for us to get serious and I’m ready to settle down.” What she couldn’t possibly explain to Lorelai is that she feels like she’s out of options and she’s tired of Luke looking at her like she’ll disappear. That this is her last card to play.

Lorelai looks shocked and sits on the steps. “Wow,” she says. “That’s. Wow.”

Rachel hides behind her lens, needing a moment and snaps another photo of Lorelai. She likes that Lorelai doesn’t tell her to stop. Luke hates her taking his picture and she doesn’t bother anymore. “Yeah, it is ‘wow’, I guess,” she says ruefully. It’s not the first time she’s said the words, but it is the first time she’s said them to someone who isn’t Luke and it’s a little scary.

She bends over to brush the step clean and sits next to Lorelai. Lorelai isn’t looking at her when she asks, “Does Luke know? That you feel this way?”

Rachel cradles her camera in her lap and fiddles with the strap before answering. “He knows. He doesn’t believe me, but he knows. Luke,” she pauses, straightening her thoughts, determined to say this right. “He knows what I am, who I am. And I’ve let him down before. I know I have. I leave and it’s not fair to him, but I can’t help it. I think I could though, I think I could settle down and be happy with him.”

Lorelai rests her cheek on her hand and faces Rachel. She’s patient, waiting for Rachel to continue.

“Is it wrong that I want more though?” Rachel whispers and she clenches her eyes shut, unable to face her own vulnerability in the moment. She doesn’t say that _settling down_ always felt a little too much like just settling.

“No.” She hears Lorelai say. She opens her eyes. “I know exactly what you mean. I wanted more out of life and I did everything I could to find it.”

The sunlight hits the corner of Lorelai’s face and makes her dark hair shine. Her eyes glint glacier blue and Rachel is sure Lorelai can hear her heat about to pound out of her chest. _She really is stunning_, she thinks, audibly swallowing.

Rachel stretches her legs out and rests on her left hip, facing Lorelai, her elbow resting on the porch and hand supporting her head. Lorelai shifts to mirror her and Rachel can’t help herself, couldn’t if she tried. They’re close enough to feel each other’s heat and the air nearly crackles between them. She lightly rests her hand on Lorelai’s hip, brushing the hint of bare skin, and trails it up to cup Lorelai’s face, eyes never leaving hers, intent clear. As Rachel leans in, she feels Lorelai whisper against her mouth, “What about Luke?”

“He knows,” Rachel replies, and kisses her like she’s wanted to since she first laid eyes on her.

*

The first time Lorelai thought about kissing another person, she was eight and watching Pinky Tuscadero jump her motorcycle in a long, graceful arc before landing next to a smitten Fonzie. She already knew Fonzie was dreamy and cool but Pinky was something else in her white short-shorts and tied pink shirt, shaking her curly red hair free from her helmet. Lorelai couldn’t believe such a person existed.

(The concept of TV characters existing only on TV and nowhere else was one she hadn’t _quite_ grasped fully yet.)

She talked about it for days until even Christopher looked annoyed. He must have forgiven her though because he came back from Thanksgiving at his aunt’s in Maine that year with a present for her. “Stole it from my cousin,” he told her proudly. It was hard to render Lorelai speechless, even back then, and she couldn’t believe her eyes.

She slipped the t-shirt over her head and it reached nearly to her knees but it was the best shirt she’d ever had. Pinky leaning against her motorcycle, hip cocked and legs a mile long, covered Lorelai’s chest and belly and she flung her arms around Chris’s neck. “I love it,” she crowed, throwing her head back in glee.

She wore it until it actually fit her, though by then she’d cut the sleeves off and the hem was starting to unravel. A pinkish bleach mark (the maid mistook it for a rag while she was at school) and a coffee stain (that was all Lorelai) decorated the collar. She loved that shirt and she loved Pinky Tuscadero.

Feeling Rachel’s lips against hers right now, she thinks, this is better than Pinky Tuscadero.

They pull apart at the same time and Lorelai groans. “Will you think I’m desperately uncool if I say that this is killing my back?” She’s not _old_, but she isn’t seventeen anymore either and another five seconds of this position and she will be hobbling to work tomorrow.

“Oh,” Rachel says. “Thank God. Me too.”

Lorelai grins and shimmies herself up two steps to the porch. She pats the space next to her and winks obnoxiously at Rachel. Rachel starts giggling and Lorelai can’t help but giggle back, thinking it’s strange she’s never heard Rachel really laugh before. A chuckle here and there, but never outright laughing. She loves the sound of it.

Rachel crawls up next to her and sheds her jacket. She lays it behind them and Lorelai flops back on it, Rachel not far behind. “Good idea,” she tells Rachel. “Debris is a pain to get out of curly hair.” She speaks from experience. Rachel’s hip bumps hers as she scoots closer and Lorelai feels her hand tracing the outline of her stomach, fingertips dipping ever so slightly under the top of her pants. She shivers.

“Cold?” Rachel snuggles up to her and presses a kiss to her shoulder. Lorelai shakes her head and Rachel continues exploring. She lightly traces the underwire of Lorelai’s bra and Lorelai can just feel the pressure and it tickles. She wriggles and strains to get Rachel to keep going, but Rachel bites her lip against a smile and doesn’t.

“Oh, you’re mean,” Lorelai complains and rolls over Rachel so that she’s blanketing her. “Mean,” she pecks a kiss. “Mean.” Another. “Mean.” Another. And then, just to show Rachel that she’s not the only one, she slides a hand up Rachel’s sweater and groans at what she finds. Or rather, what she doesn’t find. “No bra? God.”

Rachel has a cat-got-the-cream smile and stretches her arms overhead. Lorelai still has her hand cupping Rachel and she can feel the skin pull over Rachel’s ribs with the stretch. Rachel loops her arms down and around Lorelai’s neck and tugs her down for another kiss. She yips sharply into Lorelai’s mouth when Lorelai experimentally tugs on a peak. “I’m mean?” she moans. “Says you.”

Lorelai isn’t sure, but she thinks time may have stopped. That right here, on this porch, the world left them behind. She can feel the warmth of the sun on her back and smell the dry mustiness emanating from beyond the open door of the Dragonfly. She feels Rachel’s hands ceaselessly wandering her body and smells the soft florals of Rachel’s shampoo, the earthy, woodsy scent of what’s probably Luke’s soap, and the sharp sweetness of the Big Red gum Rachel was chewing in the car. All she can hear is their panting breaths and nothing else.

It’s a liminal space, Lorelai is sure now, at this inn that time and memory forgot. One of those places where bits of everyday magic live that people feel but can’t explain. She kisses Rachel again to make sure she’s really there, that Lorelai isn’t making this up.

What Lorelai wouldn’t give for a bed right now. Or at least the forethought to have worn a skirt this morning. Rachel slips her fingers between Lorelai’s stomach and pants and tugs in question. Lorelai answers by popping the button and then doing the same to Rachel’s jeans. Neither of them can get a good angle and liminal space or not, Lorelai isn’t comfortable with her ass bared to the trees so she keeps her pants mostly on. Rachel manages to wriggle her jeans down about two inches and Lorelai’s eyes nearly roll back in her head when her fingers finally catch in Rachel’s folds, warm and damp.

“If I could taste you,” she groans, her mouth running away from her as always. Rachel doesn’t seem to mind. She rolls Lorelai halfway so that they’re lying sideways, nearly how they were to begin with and Lorelai’s eyes really do roll back when Rachel’s fingers find the perfect rhythm and pressure. “That, keep doing that,” she pants and Rachel nods, quiet, determined.

It takes Lorelai a minute to find what seems to work for Rachel and her hand stutters for a moment when she comes, quieting herself by biting at Rachel’s collarbone through her sweater. She manages to pull herself together long enough for Rachel to finish too and unthinking in the haze, she licks her fingers clean.

“Oh, Jesus,” Rachel murmurs, eyes half closed but still focused on Lorelai. She’s breathy and shell-shocked and staring at Lorelai like she’s magical. Lorelai thinks her face probably looks about the same.

“I guess I got to taste you after all,” she says. “You taste good.” She’s absolutely delighted when Rachel’s ears go red and she covers her face with a shaky hand. Lorelai feels giddy, unstoppable, but chalks it up to the post-orgasmic high. Rachel’s jeans are still hanging off her hips and Lorelai teases the soft skin below Rachel’s belly button with gentle sweeps of her fingertips. She curls her other arm beneath her head and a thought occurs to her then. “Does Luke actually know about this?”

Rachel doesn’t answer for a long moment. “Luke…” she starts and then changes direction. “Yes and no. He knows I like women, that I’ve been with women.” She peeks at Lorelai, who is surprised but doesn’t know why she is, or if she even should be. “I don’t usually do this when I’m with Luke though. When I’m gone, we’re free to see whoever, do whatever we want. We don’t have any expectations on each other.” She pauses. “We love each other.”

Lorelai isn’t sure, but she thinks Rachel is starting to sound more like she’s trying to convince herself than actually believing what she’s saying. “I know,” she whispers. “I can tell.”

Rachel sighs and stares up at the ceiling of the porch. The wisteria vines curl around the edges and the flowers swing in the breeze. A blossom falls off and lands in Rachel’s curls. Lorelai reaches up to brush it away but then leaves it, thinking the purple bloom looks pretty in her hair. “Can you? I’m not so sure anymore.”

Lorelai opens her mouth to say something – what, she isn’t sure – but Rachel cuts her off. “He thinks I’m going to leave again.”

“Are you?” Lorelai holds her breath, waiting for Rachel to reply and examines her face. Trying to read her.

“I don’t know.” Rachel blows a breath between her lips and doesn’t look at Lorelai. She weaves her fingers into Lorelai’s and squeezes briefly. “I think it’s getting late.”

“Right, right,” Lorelai murmurs. Life is still going on and she has to rejoin it. Moshira Motors is a high priority guest at the Independence and she needs to check in with Michel and call Rory and a million other things that she can’t put off any longer.

Before they get in the car, Rachel stops her with a hand on her arm. She leans in and kisses Lorelai, sweet and tender and too brief.

*

“Don't get too attached to her. She's got an interesting habit of getting bored and leaving, usually without saying goodbye."

Lorelai nearly drops the jar of Grey Poupon she’s holding and frowns in surprise at Luke. He gives her a knowing look. It makes Lorelai’s palms sweat and she puts the jar on the shelf before she really does drop it and tucks her hair behind her ears.

“She said she wanted to settle down with you, Luke.” Lorelai isn’t sure how much of yesterday Rachel shared with Luke, but she doesn’t want to step in anything she can’t talk her way out of, so she leaves it at that.

Luke eyes her curiously for a moment before shrugging. “I’ve heard. I’ve heard it several times in fact. It doesn’t change the outcome. She comes, she stays, she leaves.” Lorelai fiddles with the jars lining the shelf, straightening them so the labels face outwards, and she misses the pitying look that crosses Luke’s face. “She’s got a big heart, don’t doubt that, but it doesn’t change who she is.”

Lorelai leaves the storeroom feeling awkward, cold, and confused.

*

Things settle back into something resembling normal during the week. Rory tells her that Emily called her asking about boy bands and her favorite flower while they’re waiting for the movie to start in the Black, White, and Read Theater. Kirk shushes them obnoxiously and they ignore him.

“Whoa,” Rory stops mid-sentence. “When do you think is the last time Luke watched a movie?”

Luke and Rachel walked in when Lorelai was distracted by Kirk and they’re holding hands. Lorelai doesn’t know what to say or do and she wonders if the ugly, churning feeling in her stomach is jealousy. And then she wonders why she’s jealous. “Not in this century, I’m sure,” Lorelai manages to get out and Rory laughs.

She couldn’t tell you a single thing about the movie when it finishes, her mind focused entirely on Luke and Rachel sitting a few rows in front of her and Rory. She can bullshit anything though and Rory is too preoccupied with hurting Emily’s feelings on Saturday to notice that Lorelai isn’t one hundred percent on her banter game. She wraps an arm around Rory and they walk home, a take-out bag in Lorelai’s other hand and they sit on the couch to eat a late second dinner with Jon Stewart.

*

“Oh, I’m glad you got my message!” Rachel exclaims when she answers the door. Lorelai steps inside and realizes this is the first time she’s been in Luke’s apartment.

“It’s not how I pictured it,” she starts and Rachel laughs behind her. “Not that I was picturing it.”

“I know what you meant. Have a seat! I’ve got pictures everywhere and I can’t find anything anymore.” Lorelai sits and Rachel looks through several stacks of pictures and then checks all the ones hanging from clothespins on a line strung around the apartment. “I know they’re here somewhere.”

Lorelai smiles, unsure and feeling out of place here. “Um,” she clears her throat. “So um, are you still staying?”

She doesn’t want to say it, but what Luke said to her in the storeroom the other day has been bothering her and she can’t stop poking at it in her mind, like a loose tooth about to fall out. Rachel must hear something in her voice though, and she stops her search to look at Lorelai speculatively. “Did Luke say something to you?”

“Kind of…” Lorelai mumbles. Rachel comes to sit on the couch next to her and Lorelai can see that her fingers are denting the edges of the pictures she’s holding.

“Oh.”

Lorelai is about to ask again but Rachel cuts in. “He can’t believe me.” To Lorelai’s utter horror, she thinks she sees a glint of tears in Rachel’s eyes and she puts a clumsy, comforting hand on Rachel’s arm.

“Is this…” she takes a deep breath. “Is this because of me and you? What, uh, what we did?”

Rachel’s head shoots up and she shakes it firmly. “No. No, this isn’t on you. I told him what happened between us and he’s not mad about that.”

Lorelai is briefly relieved that Luke isn’t mad at her but translates in her head that just because he isn’t mad about _that_ doesn’t mean he isn’t mad about _something_. “What does he not believe you about? That you’re serious about staying?”

Rachel smoothes the crinkles in the pictures her fingers have created and avoids Lorelai’s eyes. “I can’t blame him for not believing me, I guess. I’ve screwed this up so many times before and I didn’t even realize it. Maybe one too many times.” She huffs a short, mirthless laugh. “I thought he understood why I left. I thought it was enough that I always come back, but I don’t think it is anymore. And I can’t help but feel like everyone is waiting for me to screw it up.”

Lorelai half-heartedly protests that, but she did just hear Miss Patty and Babette gossiping yesterday about how long it would be before Rachel left again. And if Lorelai heard it, it’s likely that everyone else in town, including Rachel, heard it too.

They’re both quiet on the couch and Rachel seems to pull herself together, abruptly standing. “I’m going to check the bathroom for your pictures.”

“Um, okay,” Lorelai says to Rachel’s retreating back.

Luke swings the door open just then and his eyes travel around the apartment before finding Lorelai. “Hey, uh, Rory’s downstairs looking for you.” He adjusts his cap and gives her a grim smile before turning around to leave.

“Thanks. Um hey, Rachel?” she calls to the bathroom. “I have to go.”

“Okay,” Rachel calls back, voice echoing a little against the tiles, and doesn’t come out.

Lorelai has no idea what’s going on and she hates it.

*

Her confusion slides into irritation just in time for Emily to reveal Rory’s new bedroom and it knocks Lorelai on her ass.

“You bought her Cosmo Girl. And Hello Kitty notepads.” She couldn’t believe her eyes and all she really wants to say is _you never did this for me, your own daughter_.

Trapped in her own funk, she misses Emily’s simmering rage that boils over into hurled insults and hurt expressions about the potting shed and Lorelai’s hatred of her own mother.

“I don’t hate you, Mom,” she tries, but it’s to an empty room and Justin Timberlake is the only one who hears her. She sits heavily on her bed and takes in all the stuff Emily bought for Rory. It’s sweet, it’s nice, really it is. Rory is her granddaughter and Emily should want to do sweet and nice things for Rory. This room though. Lorelai hates this room.

Even with the new flowers and posters, Lorelai swears it’s stuck in time. All the plush carpeting and thick pillows absorbed Lorelai’s teenage anger, oppression, her fears that she wasn’t good enough for her parents, and the fuck it attitude that followed when she realized she’d never be that good. Lorelai doesn’t want her daughter in this room, absorbing all the toxicity that Lorelai is sure permeates every square inch of it.

She’s never been shy about not getting along with her parents but she carefully coats all of her stories and anecdotes in humor and wit so that no one ever sees the lonely, sad, terrified little girl underneath that had to experience it all firsthand. She doesn’t want that for Rory, at all. Ever.

*

It’s been a weird few days for Lorelai. She’s barely seen Rachel at all and Luke seems bizarrely okay with the fact that Rachel isn’t around.

“So, where is she again?”

Luke sighs deeply and rolls his eyes upward. He’s not looking at her cup as he pours and it overflows a bit. “I’ll get a rag.”

Lorelai makes an annoyed sound and grabs the towel she sees peeking from behind the cash register and wipes the counter clean. “Done. Now, tell me.” She lifts an eyebrow amusedly when Luke sets the pot down with a little too much force and the coffee sloshes up the glass sides and nearly causes another mess.

“She went into the city. I don’t know, she’s buying a new camera. Or selling a camera. Or I don’t know.” He turns around to set the pot back under the coffee maker and Lorelai thinks she hears him mutter, “Or getting on a plane.”

Lorelai doesn’t have the mental capability pre-coffee to deal with that so she lets it go and pretends she didn’t hear it. Rachel seemed sincere when she told Lorelai she wanted to stay but Lorelai has an uncomfortable, niggling feeling that Luke is pushing Rachel away and Rachel isn’t going to fight him on it.

“Luke?” She tries not to sound so little-girl-lost and mostly manages, but Luke still frowns at her when he faces her. Maybe it’s none of her business but she’s _involved_ now, too and she thinks she has the right to at least know what’s going on here.

“What?” Luke snaps when she takes too long to finish. He doesn’t seem angry with her, just regular Luke annoyed.

“Um,” she stumbles and changes direction. “I’m headed to the mall then.” At Luke’s blank stare, she follows up, “To get Rachel’s present for you.”

Luke nods and doesn’t reply. He leaves her and disappears into the kitchen and Lorelai waits a beat for him to return, but he doesn’t. She second-guesses herself for a moment, wondering if she should even be bothering with buying a present for Rachel from Luke, but decides what the hell. She was going to the mall anyway.

*

Lorelai loves the mall, she always has. She spent a lot of time here as a teenager and then a lot of time with Rory after she left her parents’ house. Of course, she couldn’t afford to buy anything, not really, but Rory seemed to enjoy the change of scenery and Lorelai did too.

She has no plan of direct attack and ends up wandering aimlessly for a while. She stops in a couple of stores and sees stuff that she thinks Rachel might like but it would be too obvious that Luke didn’t buy it. He didn’t tell Lorelai not to tell Rachel that she was doing the buying, but she doesn’t want to create an awkward situation about it either so she’ll keep quiet about it.

She needs a pretzel and a cup of coffee.

Fifteen minutes later, hands still sugary from her cinnamon-sugar pretzel, she’s draining the last bit of her coffee and suddenly feels inspired. She’d seen Rachel’s camera bag when she was in Luke’s apartment and noticed how worn out it looked. She’s on the opposite side of the mall from where she needs to be but she’s reenergized and makes her way to the camera store she passed on her way in.

She toys briefly with the idea of buying Rachel a new camera (from Luke, of course) while standing in front of the rows of displays, but has absolutely no idea what makes a camera any good or what Rachel would even want. They’re also ridiculously expensive, beyond what she could have ever imagined. She squints at a price tag of a model on a shelf near eye level. That is...more than she makes in a month and her eyes widen in shock. She keeps an arms length between her and the cameras, backing away slowly. “Uh, do you have any camera bags?” she asks the sales clerk and he points her to the back wall.

“And they’re on sale?” Lorelai grins. Perfect.

The camera bag – beautiful, leather, so soft she wants to rub her cheek on it – even on sale, wasn’t cheap and she wonders if Luke had a price point he wanted to stay at. She mentally shrugs. He didn’t tell her one so it must not exist, right? Bloomingdale’s is up ahead and she definitely sees sale signs.

It wasn’t her plan to buy Luke an entirely new wardrobe but the pants! The suit! God, those sweaters! Gorgeous. She picks up three different colors. Luke’s probably going to have an aneurysm and keel over when she shows him all of this but he’ll be very well dressed for his casket. Or he’ll just look nice when he takes Rachel out to dinner. Either way is fine with her.

Arms loaded down with bags, she has to make a trip to her car to dump some of them or risk being swallowed alive by brown Bloomingdale sacks. She heads back inside, arms free to do some more shopping, and decides to head for Barnes and Noble. Rory has been so down lately, she thinks maybe a new book will cheer her up a bit. It couldn’t hurt at any rate. She hates seeing Rory like this – sullen, too quiet. She hasn’t bumped into Dean in a while and she doesn’t really want to think of what she’d do if she saw him. Give him a piece of her mind, obviously, but she wishes it were socially acceptable for a grown woman to kick a teenager’s ass. Even if he is, like, seven feet tall and could probably hold her back with two fingers on her forehead if she came at him, arms swinging wildly and uselessly like a cartoon character between them.

After picking up and setting down at least twenty-five books, she realizes she doesn’t know what Rory already has and doesn’t have. Plus, she doesn’t have another day off coming up for a while and she won’t have time to come back to return anything she buys if Rory already has it. She conveniently ignores that she told Luke she’d return anything he didn’t like. But she’s just that confident he’s going to _love_ everything she bought. Why wouldn’t he? Gorgeous stuff.

Giving up, she starts towards the exit and passes by the Staff Recommends table. Front and center is a copy of _Out of Africa_ and Karen Blixen’s smiling face stares back at her. Lorelai’s at the register in moments and at the last second, pulls out her own card to pay. “Do you need a gift receipt?” the twenty-something clerk asks her and she shakes her head.

“No, thanks.” She smiles a little flirtatiously and the clerk perks up.

“H-have a good day.” Lorelai nods sweetly, tucks the bag into her purse and decides that even if Rachel hates birthdays, she’ll like the book. She hopes so, at least. She’s never actually read it either.

*

Luke, of course, grumbles and complains and gripes his way through trying on his new clothes and Lorelai ignores him. _Damn_, but does she know how to dress a man. The pants hug his legs and ass perfectly, and yes, she was looking. Sue her. He looks good in them. When Luke comes out of the storage room in the black sweater, she has to take a sip of coffee to wet her suddenly dry mouth. How did she never notice how strong Luke’s arms were?

Oh, right. He hides everything under shapeless, boring flannel.

She may run a hand over his bicep under the guise of adjusting the sleeve and shivers a little at how she can feel the shift of muscles underneath. Luke makes a grumpy noise and she snatches her hand away and slides it in her jean pocket. “You look good, stop complaining.”

To her utter delight, Luke’s ears turn cherry red and she can’t believe she made stone cold Luke blush. She mentally does a little jig and grins broadly at him. “You do, you know,” she says. “Try the jacket on again.”

“No,” he grumps defiantly and stalks to the back to hide from her. As if he could, she smirks. She takes a loud step behind him just to see him scurry away faster. She waits a minute to see if he’ll reemerge but then checks the time on her watch. Rory’s bus should be arriving any minute now.

*

They fight. They _never_ fight.

Rory says very un-Rory like things that have Lorelai honestly gasping like a fish out of water. She hopes it’s grief and hurt and general angsty teenager-ness talking and not something that Rory has been harboring quietly, simmering under the surface all this time. It hurts. It hurts because yes, Rory is her daughter but Rory’s her friend. Her best friend. And best friends don’t say nasty things to each other. At least, they don’t. Didn’t.

“I’ll see you at home,” Rory tells her after an insincere apology and Lorelai is reeling too much to stop her.

It’s fine, though. Things will be fine. She’ll get home and they’ll work it out and talk. They’re good at talking! They love to talk! If there was an Olympic event for talking she and Rory would get gold and silver, respectively.

Which is why when she opens the door to their house, she immediately feels something is off.

“Rory?”

The silence is palpable.

“Rory!”

Her heart starts to pound and she knows, she knows, with a mother’s intuition, that something is just not right.

She pages Rory and waits anxiously by the phone. Ten minutes go by. Twenty. She pages her again and waits. Another ten minutes. She has the house phone clutched in her hand and runs out to the porch. “Babette?”

Babette turns from where she’s kneeling in the dirt pulling weeds from her front yard flowerbed. “Hiya, sugar! You need something?”

Lorelai grips the phone so tightly she accidentally presses a button and she hears the dial tone buzzing. She takes a deep breath and wills herself to calm down, to not freak Babette out. “Um, did you see Rory come home?”

Babette stands, barely taller than her box hedges, and wipes dirt off on her pants. She gives Lorelai a concerned look and Lorelai rushes to add, “It’s no big deal, we probably just missed each other.”

“I haven’t seen her, doll, not since this morning. You want me to call Patty? See if she’s seen her?”

Lorelai waves a hand. “No, don’t worry about it. I bet she’s at Luke’s right now waiting for me.” She makes a show of going inside and smiling reassuringly at Babette, who waves back at her and goes back to weeding her flowerbed. Lorelai does not feel reassured though because she knows Rory didn’t head to Luke’s. She would have seen her doubling back after Lorelai stopped in the market. No, Rory isn’t there. But where is she?

Three hours later and Lorelai is officially freaking out. Sookie, bless her, is scouring town while Lorelai calls people, trying not to sound like a crazy, frantic mother but right now that’s exactly what she is. Her kid isn’t here and she isn’t anywhere and Lorelai is losing her goddamn mind.

She thinks about calling Max for the briefest of moments and nearly drops the phone in surprise when it rings. “Rory?”

“No, it’s Max,” his voice comes over the line, soothing and lovely as always. “I know we didn’t have a phone date tonight, but I wanted to ask you about Rory.”

Lorelai’s heart jumps. “Rory? Have you seen her?”

She can hear his frown through the phone when Max tells her, “Not since she left my class this afternoon. She seemed upset though. I wanted to call and make sure everything was okay.”

Sookie appears by her side and Lorelai grabs her hand. _Max_, she mouths at Sookie and Sookie nods, stays quiet even through her flicker of surprise. “What happened? What was she upset about?”

“Uh, I,” Max stammers and Lorelai bounces on her toes, willing him to talk faster. “I think she was upset about us.”

“Us?” She tightens her hold on Sookie’s hand and she feels Sookie wince and say, “Sweetie, sweetie, losing feeling in my fingers.” She shoots an apologetic look at Sookie and eases up on her death grip.

Max is still talking – something about seeing Rory after class. “She didn’t seem to know that you and I had been talking and I’m not passing judgment here, Lorelai, but why didn’t you tell her?” He really doesn't sound judgmental, simply curious. He's kind and good and maybe she'll revisit this at another time but she's in panic mode right now. 

Lorelai lets go of Sookie’s hand to rub at her eyes until she sees stars. “I should have and we can absolutely talk about this later but right now, Rory is missing and I don’t know where she is and I really need to table this conversation.”

Max inhales sharply and says, “Do you want me to come over? Help you look for her?” and for a tiny second, she thinks _yes_ but then says, “No. It’s okay, I’ll call you later.”

She hangs up and looks at Sookie with the most pathetic expression she can muster. “Is this all my fault?”

Sookie shakes her head and opens her mouth to reply but is interrupted by the phone ringing again.

“Rory?”

Emily’s imperious voice drifts over the line and Lorelai’s head immediately starts to throb with an overload of stress. “Rory’s here with us. She seemed upset and she went to her room.”

“Her room is here, Mom,” Lorelai says, trying so fucking hard to remain calm but she’s losing the fight. “I’m looking at her room and she’s not in it. I want to talk to her.”

Emily refuses to pass the phone to Rory and tells Lorelai to call tomorrow. She jams the button to hang up so hard, it hurts her thumb.

Sookie is somewhere behind her and asks quietly, “Do you want me to stay, honey?”

Lorelai shakes her head and rests her forehead on the doorjamb to Rory’s room. “No, it’s okay. I’ll get her tomorrow.” She feels Sookie squeeze her arm and hears the door shut. She waits until she hears Sookie’s car start and pull out of the driveway before she breaks down and cries. Big, ugly, loud choking sobs that she never allows herself because she’s not usually one for self-pity, but this just hurts more than she thought it could. Maybe it’s been building for a while within her, gathering strength like a hurricane in warm waters. Maybe it’s a little more than just Rory leaving.

*

Emily lies in bed that night, listening to Richard snore and mutter in his sleep. She smoothes the bedcovers over her chest and watches the moonlight drift across her ceiling.

It’s not that she enjoys the fact that Rory and Lorelai fought, really it isn’t. She just can’t quite believe Rory ran away from Lorelai to _her_.

She always had a plan for her life. She went to college, but never had any intention of doing anything with her history degree. She married a wonderful man. She got pregnant and every time she caught her swelling belly in the mirror, she smiled, giddy and thrilled. She did what she was supposed to do all her life and everything would work out now. Her daughter would grow and love her, follow in her footsteps or maybe Richard’s. Maybe Lorelai would go to Yale and work in the insurance business with Richard. Or she’d go on to law school or maybe she’d join Emily at the DAR. Lorelai had unimaginable potential and though they fought more and more as Lorelai grew older, she still had a plan. She had a plan for her life and her daughter’s life.

Until she didn’t.

But here, now, it feels like Fate has given her a second chance. Another Lorelai. One that doesn’t hate her at all. One that ran to her, not from her.

(Emily knows, rationally, that Rory has to go home to her mother eventually, but it doesn’t stop her from dreaming that night about another life. A more perfect life.

Five years from now, she’ll remember this moment when she agrees to take Rory in again and she wont regret it then either. But she doesn’t tell anyone that, ever. She’ll take that to her grave.)

*

Lorelai sleeps on Rory’s bed that night, though it can hardly be called sleeping. She dozes here and there until the sun shines directly in her face through the blinds she forgot to close last night.

She has to use more concealer under her eyes than she’s ever used before and even that doesn’t fully hide the purplish bruising tint of the bags that scream _I didn’t sleep a wink and I’m not sixteen anymore_.

“You look rough,” Luke tells her, bluntly and with a raised brow.

She gulps at her coffee and burns the roof of her mouth so badly that it takes her a moment to gather her words. “Rory ran away last night.”

She jumps when Luke slams the coffeepot down and inhales loudly. “What?!”

It takes a minute to calm him down but she tells him the bare minimum. That they fought and she ran away. Lorelai doesn’t say she didn’t sleep, couldn’t sleep. That she cried into her daughter’s pillow. That she got into her car at two this morning intending to save her daughter from her mother’s clutches.

That she got out of the car at half past two, never having left the driveway, and stumbled into the house to make a pot of coffee but didn’t drink a drop of it.

She thinks Luke maybe hears all of that anyway because he pats her wrist kindly and says, “She’ll be home soon.”

It’s not until Lorelai leaves the diner that she forgot about Rachel’s birthday.

*

She yells at Dean while he’s stacking boxes of crackers in Doose’s. It goes badly.

She walks out, embarrassed and confused.

*

Lorelai carefully choreographs their reunion while she drives to Hartford. She knows exactly what she’s going to say, how hard she’s going to hug her kid when she sees her. She plans everything because she can’t leave it to chance. She needs her daughter as much as Rory needs her, and she can’t screw this up too.

Seeing Rory in Lorelai’s old room, lying curled up on the bed just like Lorelai used to when she was angry and hurting and stuck, makes her head spin a bit with nauseating, dizzying memories. God, she didn’t want Rory here of all places. Not in this room, not in this house. She lived in this house for sixteen years and it never once felt like home to her. Maybe like a mausoleum – empty, cold, quiet, no place for a child. Certainly not a place for _her_ child. She comforts herself as much as she comforts Rory when she hugs her daughter so hard she can hear her own joints creak in protest. She tries to talk to Rory about this, about Dean, about running away, about love. As if Lorelai is such an expert at that and Rory blindsides her with “Are you ready to be in love when it happens?”

“I’m working on it,” she replies, because she can’t lie to her kid but she can’t tell her the truth either. She _loves_ people. She loves Rory and Sookie and Mia and even Michel (sometimes). But she doesn’t know if she’s ever been in love with someone. And isn’t that an uncomfortable thought?

She puts an end to the conversation before she has to do too much introspection and she ushers Rory out of that room. She hates that room. She never wanted her daughter there.

*

Maybe it’s an edge of paranoia but Lorelai sneaks downstairs every half hour after Rory goes to bed that night and peeks in her room. Rory never stirs and she breathes a sigh of relief that Rory is still there. Not that she’s expecting Rory to leave again, but the last twenty-four hours have been a little traumatic and she’s not going to apologize for being cautious.

After her third trip downstairs, the trek back up the stairs looks too daunting and she curls up on the couch. Her purse is on the coffee table and she sees the bookstore’s plastic bag sticking out of it. Lorelai pulls it out and the book slides into her lap. There’s a pen on the side table and she grabs it, clicks it several times as she opens the front cover and stares at the smooth, blank page.

She glances to Rory’s room and then down back to the book. She clicks the pen again and presses it to the paper.

_Rachel,_

*

Rachel takes her time in the city, not really in a rush to get back to Stars Hollow just yet. New York has a thrumming energy that she can feel under her skin and she loves it. She’s always loved it here. Luke doesn’t know it but the last time she left, she spent close to six months in the city, waiting to see if he’d come after her.

He never did.

She told Luke that she needed a new camera and that was part of the reason she made the trip. She also finished her piece for Time and even though she could have emailed it, she takes the opportunity to check in at their offices. Luke never asks her about her work, but she is proud of this piece. It took her a long time and she put a lot of work and emotion into it. She knows that Luke associates her work with her constantly leaving and maybe he has a point but she also loves her job. She loves what she does and God, if only Luke would come with her. She wants to take him anywhere and everywhere.

The café near the Louvre that has the best coffee in Paris.

The lake in Alaska where she camped for three days once, alone and slightly terrified but exhilarated all the same.

Her favorite pub in Dublin. Her second favorite across the Irish Sea in Glasgow.

The tiny restaurant outside Jerusalem where she ate her weight in the best shakshuka she’s ever had in her life.

She doesn’t think he’d enjoy diving with sharks in Cape Town or dancing in Santiago, tipsy on delicious Chilean wine, but maybe he would. If only he’d come with her.

She wonders how Lorelai feels about Guinness and French coffee and all sorts of experiences that she wishes, wants, to share with someone, anyone. But then she remembers that Lorelai has a daughter, a family, a stable career, all things that Rachel wouldn’t know what to do with even if she had them, and she tells herself _no_. She can’t do that to Lorelai. She can’t do that to herself.

If she asked Lorelai, Rachel knows she’d respond the same way Luke had the first and only time Rachel asked him. Surprise, regret, a shade of pity. It was painful enough the first time. No, thanks.

She works herself into a truly foul mood on the way back to Stars Hollow and gets into town late. It’s eerily quiet in the diner, usually so noisy and chaotic, and it gives her goosebumps. She feels like she’s disturbing everything as she skirts her way around the tables and up the stairs. Luke, of course, is dead asleep and doesn’t even stir when she slides into bed next to him.

Rachel rolls over to face the clock and watches the numbers change. It’s not until about ten minutes later that she remembers. “Happy birthday to me,” she whispers and Luke grunts behind her. He settles back down and she does her best to get some sleep.

*

Rachel doesn’t like her birthday. She likes other people’s birthdays just fine, but her own not so much. Luke knows this, which is why she’s genuinely astonished when he hands her a rather large wrapped gift.

“What is this?” The wrapping paper is taped unevenly, the graphic print is painfully festive, and she’s utterly charmed. She doesn’t like her birthday, but who doesn’t like presents?

Luke makes a dismissive noise and rubs his nose. “It’s…what it is. Just open it.”

“It is what it is,” she chuckles and gently pries a nail under the paper to open it.

“Just rip it,” he tells her impatiently and does a _hurry up_ gesture.

She feels like being contrary and peels back another piece of tape before smiling at Luke impishly and ripping it open. “Oh.”

The bag is beautiful. Rachel strokes her fingers along the sides and her fingertips slip and slide along the gorgeous leather. “Luke, this is…” She doesn’t have words. Luke has never given her a gift so thoughtful and _useful_.

About seven years ago, Luke gave her an elephant shaped watering can for her birthday and she had absolutely no idea what to do with it. For one, she didn’t garden or have plants indoors but Luke seemed so hopeful that she’d like it, that she really didn’t have the heart to say anything to him. She hasn’t seen it around so she thinks it’s probably at Goodwill along with the rest of her stuff that she left here last time and has all mysteriously disappeared.

“You like it?”

Rachel nods. “I do, I really do. It’s beautiful.” She puts the bag and the wrapping paper on the ground by her feet to stand and grab Luke by the back of the head. “Thank you.”

She kisses him like she loves him. She kisses him like she wants him.

He kisses her like he wants to pull away but can’t.

When she leans back, she licks her lips and frowns at Luke. He’s already turned and walking to the bathroom. “We’ve got dinner reservations in an hour,” he calls out over the sound of the shower being turned on.

“Okay,” she says and sits heavily on the couch. Rachel looks at the bag, nudges it with her foot. “Okay,” she says again and listens to Luke in the shower. She can hear him humming, he never sings, but it doesn’t sound as soothing to her as it usually does.

She puts a little extra effort into looking nice for their dinner and is glad it’s appreciated when Luke raises his eyebrows and smiles at her coming out of the bathroom.

The feeling doesn’t last through dinner, and in fact, barely makes it out the diner door. Everything is awkward and stilted between them. It’s painful and Rachel doesn’t know how to fix it. How to fix _them_. What more can she do but be here and tell him how much she loves him? How much she wants this to work? She’s nearing the end of her rope and she doesn’t know if she has the strength to hang on much longer.

*

The next few mornings, Rachel wakes up alone. Luke comes back by around seven, but always sweaty and dirty.

“Where did you go?” The diner’s in a mid-morning lull, everyone off to school or work already and Luke is wiping down the counters for the third time.

“When?” He doesn’t look at her and she tries very, very hard not to sigh impatiently. Luke playing obtuse is her least favorite thing about him and lately, he’s been doing it often.

“This morning,” she says, and she’s proud of the fact that she sounds totally even-tempered.

Luke tosses the rag and starts filling up the coffeemaker again. “Just helping out at Lorelai’s.”

“Okay, I just thought that – “ Rachel doesn’t get to finish. Kirk walks in and sits at the counter cutting her off. At the sudden silence, Luke looks at her and then down at Kirk.

“What can I get you, Kirk?”

Rachel nods and thinks _okay_. She doesn’t see Luke for the rest of the day and eats dinner alone in the apartment. She eats breakfast and lunch alone the next day, too.

*

The book sits wrapped at the bottom of Lorelai’s purse and she’s getting used to its weight now. She’s seen Rachel a couple of times, but it just hasn’t felt like the right time yet.

Max has been hanging around more and more lately and Rory seems to really like him, which makes Lorelai nervous. Max is great. He’s smart and kind and handsome and all things that Lorelai intellectually knows that she should want but deep down, she doesn’t feel any different. She always thought falling in love would be more…_more. _Max is great but he isn’t the _more_ Lorelai thinks she should be feeling right now.

She’s still contemplating this while flipping through the TV channels when Luke nearly scares her half to death breaking in through her back door. He’s lucky she didn’t throw something at him.

“What the hell are you doing?” she cries, jumping up. And then hits him anyway. “You broke my door!”

Luke rubs his arm. “I can fix it, it’s just a bad lock. See?”

Lorelai follows him to the now broken door and she squints at the lock. “No. It looks broken. You _broke _it.”

Luke has the good grace to look embarrassed about it at least and she manages to eventually pry it out of him that he’s hiding from Rachel.

“But why?” Lorelai shakes her head, confused. “I thought this is what you wanted. I thought you wanted Rachel back.” She guides him to sit at the table and pours him a glass of water. Really, she’s too magnanimous. He _broke_ her damn door.

“It was,” he tells her. “It is. Or, I don’t know. It’s just not the same as the fantasy I’ve been toting around all these years.” He shrugs. “Maybe I’m just meant to be a loner, you know?”

Lorelai thinks that’s the stupidest thing she’s ever heard but she doesn’t say that. Instead, she tells Luke that he’s got it pretty good. “Most people would kill to have someone at home waiting for them like that.”

Luke leaves a few minutes later, apologizing and promising to fix the door tomorrow, and Lorelai waves him off. She spends the next hour eating Nilla wafers out of the box and staring mindlessly at the TV.

Most people would kill to have someone like Rachel waiting at home for them. Lorelai thinks she would be one of those people but she knows it wouldn’t work. She looks around the empty house to double check that she’s alone. Lorelai doesn’t like thinking about stuff like this when someone could be witness to her vulnerability. Lorelai’s armor is a thing of beauty and she’s spent years crafting it and molding it to protect her more tender places. Humor to distract, wit to misdirect, barbed comments to attack. It’s a finely honed system.

Her thoughts are interrupted by Rory throwing open the front door and dropping her backpack with a resounding thud. Lorelai takes in her daughter’s frustrated face. “What’s wrong?” She sits forward and offers Rory some of her Nilla wafers.

“Paris,” Rory grunts and grabs a handful of cookies.

“Ah,” Lorelai replies. “Say no more.” She spends the rest of the night trying to cheer up Rory and resolves to put Rachel and Luke and Max all on the back burner until tomorrow.

Tomorrow turns into the next day and then the next day.

*

“Oh!” Lorelai says, looking around the empty diner. “It’s like the _Twilight Zone_ or something in here.”

Rachel laughs and motions for Lorelai to take a seat at the counter. “Just one of those weird midday lulls, you know? Happens a lot between breakfast and lunch. What can I get you?” she asks, even as she’s pouring Lorelai a cup of coffee.

Lorelai smiles and nods down at the mug. “Coffee is perfect.” She takes a sip and Rachel rests against the back counter. Lorelai doesn’t think she’s imagining it but Rachel looks happy to see her. “Oh, hey, I got you something.”

No time like the present, she supposes. And it’s only a week late. She digs around her purse and finds the wrapped book. A corner of the paper is torn from being shuffled around her bag all week and she tries to smooth it down to be less noticeable. There’s also a pink stain on the tape that looks suspiciously like the color of her new lip gloss and she’s makes a mental note to make sure it didn’t break and make everything else pink and shiny. “I know your birthday was last week and I meant to give it to you then but uh, things just got a little crazy at home.”

“Lorelai, you didn’t have to,” Rachel protests and Lorelai shakes her head. She holds the book out to Rachel who takes it and grasps it with both hands. “Thank you, this is sweet.”

Lorelai takes another sip of coffee and tells her, “It’s important to have presents on your birthday. Or a week after your birthday.” Rachel laughs and runs her thumbs over the top of the book absently, staring at Lorelai. Lorelai waits and realizes Rachel is making no move to open it. “You don’t uh, have to open it now.”

“Oh! Right,” Rachel tears off the paper and stops. Lorelai holds her breath and hopes she made the right move. Her palms are starting to sweat and she puts down the mug, just in case she drops it. Rachel shakes herself out of whatever trance she was in and pulls the book out the rest of the way. “Lorelai, I,” she clears her throat and looks right into Lorelai’s eyes. “Thank you.”

Lorelai smiles and starts to feel uncomfortable when Rachel flips the book over to the back cover but doesn’t open the front. She’s startled when Rachel leans over the counter and pulls Lorelai in with one arm for a hug. Rachel doesn’t say anything but Lorelai feels Rachel’s lips brush her cheek as she moves back, dangerously close to her own lips, and she’s torn between fear and want.

Luke, the town, windows everywhere in the middle of the day, anyone could walk by and see. Anxiety creeps through her heart and seizes it in a vise grip. But oh, does Lorelai want. She can still feel the ghost of Rachel’s lips and the warmth of her arm around Lorelai’s shoulder. The scent of her shampoo and the coffee Rachel must have been drinking earlier is still so strong around her that Lorelai could almost taste her. She’s unconsciously leaning in again when the little bell above the door dings and Taylor walks in. Lorelai jerks back on the stool and it rocks hard enough on its legs that she has to grab the counter to steady herself. “Ah, ladies!” he chirps. “Have either of you seen Luke? I have some business to discuss with him.”

Lorelai shrugs at Taylor. “Sorry, haven’t seen him. Hey, Rachel, I’m gonna go. I need to get back to work.”

“Right! Right, of course,” Rachel replies, ignoring Taylor. “Thanks again.” She tips the book up and smiles.

Lorelai tosses a couple of dollars onto the counter and waves goodbye. She pauses at the door with her hand on the knob and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t know what she wanted to say, especially with Taylor here now, but she feels like she needs to say something, anything. She just has a bad feeling.

The feeling is compounded when she feels Rachel standing behind her and she turns to see. Rachel is in Lorelai’s arms and after a moment of confusion, Lorelai wraps her arms around Rachel’s waist. She can feel Rachel’s chin hooked over her left shoulder and the vibrations in her chest when Rachel clears her throat to say something. But nothing comes.

Rachel steps back and coughs. They look at Taylor simultaneously, who thankfully has paid them no attention whatsoever, and Lorelai opens her mouth to ask…something. _What was that for?_

“Bye,” Rachel says and Lorelai is left wide-eyed and confused as she opens the door.

“Bye,” she returns, but it sounds more like a question. She’s unsettled for the rest of the day.

*

Taylor eventually leaves and Rachel is left alone again in the diner. It’s funny how often she ends up alone, she thinks. Even when she theoretically has somebody, she doesn’t really. She stands in the middle of the diner and just breathes. The book is still in her hand and she runs her fingers over Karen Blixen’s sepia-toned face. The dust jacket is slightly askew and she opens the front cover to adjust it. She sees the blue inked handwriting but slams it shut before she can read it. Luke’s truck rumbles to the curb and she flees upstairs, figuring he can handle any customers who stop in for a while.

She shuts the door firmly behind her and finds herself in the bathroom, sitting against the closed door. She opens the cover again and takes a deep breath and reads.

_Rachel,_

_Happy birthday! I saw this and thought of you – that sounds so cliché, but it’s true. I don’t think I’ll ever see Out of Africa again without thinking of you. Remember the day we talked about it? It was perfect and I think I’ll remember it forever. _

_Love, _

_Lorelai_

Rachel shuts the book and cries.

She cries until her eyes are swollen and her head aches and she can hear Luke’s footsteps on the stairs outside the apartment. She reaches over and turns on the faucet to the tub, the sound of the rushing water drowning out Luke calling her name at the front door. Rachel peels off her clothes and climbs into the filling tub, feeling too exposed to deal with him right now. She’s too tall to stretch out in it so she bends her knees and lays her head in the pooling water. It’s up to her ears, everything going quiet. Her eyes drift shut and she lets the water envelop her.

Her tears mix with the water and she allows the anger, the frustration, the love, and the pity for herself to well up within her and get lost in the water that’s now nearly covering her face.

When finally she gets out of the tub, wrinkled and flushed with the heat, she feels better, calmer, more centered. She knows what she has to do.

*

Luke returns from the town meeting the next night just as she’s finishing cleaning and straightening everything up for the morning rush tomorrow. “You hungry? I could whip us up something,” he offers.

Rachel doesn’t, _can’t_ answer. She walks around the counter, bags in hand and Luke’s face falls and then hardens. “So, you’re leaving, huh?” He starts to stalk away from her and she can’t help it.

“Don’t you get it? You want this more than I do.”

She’s shocked him, she can tell and he whirls around, all righteous indignation. She inwardly cringes, not wanting this to be a big scene.

“Don’t blame this on me,” he starts and she grabs his hands in hers, pleading with him.

“I’m not blaming you, okay?” she tells him, needing him to hear this, _really _hear it. “But can you admit it, that you’ve been pushing me away almost since the day I got back.”

He’s trying to pull his hands away but she tightens her grip and won’t let him go. “Rachel, I – “ he stops, unsure. But she hears it anyway. The _you’re right_ that she doesn’t want to hear.

She pulls him close and he’s stiff and unrelenting but she hangs on anyway. “I love you, you know?” she says, and she won’t cry, damn it, she won’t. “But it’s not enough to fix this. We’re not right, maybe we never were. But I love you, okay?” She sniffs and Luke’s arms finally wrap around her. “I really do.”

Luke doesn’t say anything but she feels him squeeze her tight against him for the briefest of moments before letting go. “Yeah, me too.”

They stay in each other’s orbit for another minute, and she breathes him in. She kisses him quickly, softly, and grabs her bags and leaves before she does something stupid, like change her mind.

She tosses her bags in her car and drives, refusing to look back. She doesn’t know if she’ll ever really let go of Luke, she’ll probably take him with her to her grave as the love she could have had. The love she wanted and should have had, if only she were different. If only he was different. If only, if only.

Rachel makes only one stop before leaving town for good. The lights are on and she can see shadows moving behind the curtains, but she doesn’t go up to the door. She doesn’t even get out of her car, but just stops next to the mailbox. The manila envelope is waiting on the front seat, she made sure to leave it out of her bag, and she rolls down the window and slides it into the mailbox. Then she’s backing out of the driveway and on her way to the interstate, leaving Stars Hollow and the possibility of a life she could have had behind her.

*

Lorelai sees headlights flash across the living room walls, but by the time she’s made it over to the window to peer outside, nothing’s there.

“Huh,” she says and frowns. She crosses her arms and hugs herself, unable to describe the strange roiling in her belly, like something is wrong, missing.

She goes upstairs to bed and sleeps badly, tossing and turning all night.

Luke tells her the next morning that Rachel’s gone. It shouldn’t surprise her. It doesn’t. (It does, it does.)

*

It takes a while for Lorelai to readjust. The town collectively shrugged at the news, unsurprised and willing to immediately move on. Luke is, as always, a stone wall and refuses to even mention Rachel’s name.

It burns at Lorelai that no one but her, Rachel, and Luke knew about what she and Rachel shared, and even then, she’s not sure how much of it Luke actually knows and she sure as hell isn’t going to ask to find out. But it feels too important to forget. Too important to just sweep under the rug and never think about again. What choice does she have though? She can’t tell Rory or Sookie. Rachel’s gone and Lorelai is still here.

She does the only thing she can.

She lovingly, with all the sweetness and tenderness she can muster, puts Rachel in her mental Do Not Open box, full of things and experiences and possibilities that she never, ever speaks about and carefully closes the lid again. She breathes deeply and tells herself, _okay. Life goes on, it always does. _Maybe one day she’ll revisit it, but not today.


	2. epilogue

The day Lorelai and Sookie bought the Dragonfly was one of the greatest days of Lorelai’s life. It was finally happening, her dream of owning her own inn was becoming a reality.

The day of the test run, Lorelai is so excited and stressed that she barely has time to think of anything at all. She’s giving her staff a pep talk and reminding everyone to treat everyone as guests, not friends, and she can feel everyone’s nervous energy around her. She stands at the top of the porch and knows it’s sentimental, but she can’t help but remember that afternoon with Rachel, right where she’s standing. It’s been years, but she wishes for a moment that Rachel could be one of the guests coming today. After all, it started with Rachel.

When Luke kisses Lorelai that night, everything slots into place in her mind and she thinks _oh. That’s what that’s like. _

*

“Hey,” Luke pokes his head in the doorway. “Did you still want me to take a look at that window?”

“Yes,” Lorelai groans. “What’s the point of having this window in my office if it doesn’t open?” She’s spent one summer already in the stifling heat, the west-facing window making her office nearly unbearable in the afternoons. She let’s Luke get to work and busies herself signing checks. Everyone wants to get paid, and boy, does her hand ache every other Thursday.

They’re quiet, enjoying each other’s company without saying anything at all and she pauses every couple of checks to admire Luke in his new jeans. She bought them for him last week and he protested, as she knew he would, but his old jeans were falling apart and they both knew it.

She’s almost done with her stack when Luke says, “I’ve feel like I’ve seen that before.”

“What?” She looks up and follows Luke’s pointed finger to the wall next to her. “The picture?”

“Yeah,” he replies, and then gives the window a yank. It comes free and Lorelai feels a rush of late spring air filter in. “There, finally.”

“Bob Villa who? You, my friend, are a godsend. Thank you, thank you,” she does a funny little half-bow from her desk chair and Luke snorts and waves her off.

“I’ll see you later?”

Lorelai grins and kisses Luke goodbye. She waits until he leaves and shuts the door behind him. The glass on the picture frame glints and she takes it off the wall. Lorelai holds it in her hands, staring hard at the now-familiar scene. She and Luke, several years younger, staring at each other and smiling on a bench. It’s still a clear memory in her mind and sometimes she can still feel the bite of the wind, the warmth of the fire.

She lays the picture down and reaches into the bottom drawer of her desk. An old manila envelope comes out and a second picture frame. She grasps the contents with two fingers and pulls it out. The Dragonfly looks back at her, ancient, worn, falling apart in some places, but still holding a spark of charm. Lorelai flips it over and reads.

_Lorelai,_

_I remember that day, too. It was perfect and so were you. _

_Love, _

_Rachel_

Lorelai sighs and slips the picture into the new frame. She hangs both pictures on the wall, one right next to the other.

Finding the envelope in her mailbox that day eased the sting of being left and though Luke refuses to even mention her name to this day, Lorelai still thinks of Rachel from time to time, wondering where she is, what exciting thing she’s doing now, hoping through it all that’s she doing well.

Lorelai keeps Rachel in a little box in her mind with all her other loves lost and gone.

Rachel changed everything for Lorelai and she isn’t sorry for any of it.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi, hello, thanks so much for reading. Yes, I'm back. No, I don't have a good explanation for why I deleted everything last year. Sorry. But thank you for your patience. I hope you enjoyed the fic as much as you did the first time around. Or if you hadn't read it the first time, no worries. You didn't miss anything. Cheers, my darlings.


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